New President Takes Helm of Divided Mexico

Calderón Sworn In As Opponents Jeer

By Lorraine Orlandi
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, December 2, 2006; Page A08

Photos
Amid Chaos, Calderon Takes Office
Felipe Calderon was inaugurated as Mexico's next president in a Dec. 1 ceremony amid protests from those who insist he won fraudulently in the July election.

MEXICO CITY, Dec. 1 -- Felipe Calderón, a free-trade booster and career politician, was sworn in as president of Mexico on Friday in a ceremony undercut by lawmakers' jeers and fisticuffs, a chaotic scene that reflected the country's deep political and economic divisions.

Calderón, 44, slipped through a side door into the congressional chamber to recite the oath of office, as opposition legislators made a final push to barricade the entrances and block his inauguration. Moments earlier, rival lawmakers had brawled briefly on the assembly's floor, shoving each other and throwing chairs.
Felipe Calderon was inaugurated as Mexico's next president in a Dec. 1 ceremony amid protests from those who insist he won fraudulently in the July election.

The perfunctory ceremony lasted less than five minutes and was nearly drowned out by whistling and catcalls from opponents who said Calderón had stolen the July election through fraud.

It was an unprecedented departure from the typical somber pageantry of Mexico's transfer of power and a long way from the mass euphoria that greeted Vicente Fox's 2000 election victory, which ended 71 years of single-party rule. It was also an indication of the challenges that await Calderón.

In a speech at the National Auditorium a few hours after the inauguration, the new president acknowledged the turmoil, but he also called on rivals to put aside political differences.

"To those who voted for other political options, I say I will not ignore the reasons behind your vote, and I ask you to let me win your confidence through action," he said, speaking from the vast stage where he was briefly joined by his wife and three young children.

"Clearly, Mexico is living through tense times. . . . I am aware of the seriousness of our differences and take full responsibility to solve them and reunite Mexico."

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the popular former mayor of Mexico City who lost the election to Calderón, has declared himself the "legitimate" president. He mobilized mass street protests that paralyzed the city center for weeks after the election. On Friday, he led a march against Calderón through the capital's downtown and pledged to "defend democracy."

"We will not accept a democratic farce," he told cheering supporters.

Calderón, of the National Action Party, won the election by less than one percentage point. The nation's top electoral court found no evidence to support allegations of widespread fraud and rejected López Obrador's calls for a vote-by-vote recount, instead certifying Calderón the winner after a recount of about 9 percent of returns.

That left a bitter taste among some Mexican voters, especially those disappointed with Fox's failure to close the gap between rich and poor, rein in rampant drug-related violence and street crime, and create new jobs in a nation where 40 percent of the population lives in poverty.

Such social inequalities have recently helped feed unrest in parts of the country. Violent protests in the historic southern city of Oaxaca have claimed several lives in the past few months and left the tourist center damaged. A handful of bombs apparently placed by groups sympathetic to the Oaxaca protesters exploded across Mexico City recently. And a turf war among drug gangs has produced gory headlines daily.

"Fox is bequeathing to Calderón a country without government," said Homero Aridjis, a 66-year-old poet, commentator and environmentalist who attended Calderón's speech.

"The political parties are in a pitched battle, it's like lucha libre," or freestyle wrestling, said Aridjis. "In Oaxaca, a historic city has been ruined by negligence and social and labor unrest. We have drug executions daily. At breakfast you read in the paper how many people were killed today."
Felipe Calderon was inaugurated as Mexico's next president in a Dec. 1 ceremony amid protests from those who insist he won fraudulently in the July election.

Calderón pledged to fight crime with an overhaul of the police and the justice system, to combat poverty and to repay Mexico's "enormous debt to the poor" with more, and more efficient, social spending. He also promised to create jobs and attract investment to stem illegal migration.

He has used strong language to denounce Washington's plan to extend a wall along the border to stop illegal immigrants, but he has said he believes there is "room for improvement" on immigration and other bilateral issues after Democratic gains in the U.S. Congress.

In perhaps his most dramatic gesture and one that echoed López Obrador's calls for government austerity, Calderón on Friday promised to immediately slash salaries of the president and high-ranking officials and asked Congress to review the pay scales for all public officials.

Fox's 2006 salary was 2.7 million pesos, or about $245,000. In Peru, a similar gesture by center-left President Alan Garcia boosted his approval ratings soon after he took office in July.

Like Fox, Calderón will face a divided Congress. His party holds the largest voting bloc, but López Obrador's Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, makes up the second-largest force.

Among Calderón's first challenges may be confronting Mexico's privileged business elite -- seen by many as the pillar of his support base but which benefits from tax and regulatory breaks that economists say squeeze ordinary Mexicans with high prices for basic services.

"Mexican capitalists, the big ones, were protected by the old PRI system, and Fox didn't touch that," said Marifeli Pérez-Stable, an analyst with the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, referring to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which lost power in 2000.

Rogelio Ramírez de la O, an economist who advised López Obrador's campaign, said Calderón must take on the oligarchy where Mexico's wealth is concentrated, as well as corrupt unions and vested interests at state-owned oil monopoly Pemex.

"If he presents himself like Teddy Roosevelt going up against the robber barons, that would be a sign that would create a positive environment," he said. "But if he doesn't govern for the other half of Mexico, then Mexico will be increasingly partitioned."

Tens of thousands of anti-Calderón protesters gathered in Mexico City's central plaza on Friday to voice their displeasure with the inauguration. Among them was Lilia Gomez, a 42-year-old housewife from the southern state of Veracruz who took not a little joy in seeing Calderón have to squirrel himself into Congress.

"He never thought he would have to go in the back door," she said.

(Link to article in Washington post)